


Ten Minutes to Midnight

by pulltab (Dekka)



Category: youtube - Fandom
Genre: Brobly if you squint, Gen, Trigger warnings for possibly suicidal beahvior, also basically all ships if you squint tbh, basically Colby is fascinated by ledges and falling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:20:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16140956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dekka/pseuds/pulltab
Summary: Colby doesn't think there's anything wrong with him. It's healthy to be curious about your body's limits.It only takes one night to prove himself wrong.TW: Suicidal themes and behavior. Please don't read if this will impact you negatively.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> !!Trigger Warning- suicidal themes and behaviors!!

Colby’s done some stupid things in his short existence. Most things he’d like to blame on youtube, but the truth is he’s been reckless from the beginning.

It’s why he finds himself peering over the edge of a cliff, before smiling back at Elton as the older glares him down. 

“Colby, come on man, every time I look over you’re dangling off something,” he jokes from behind a camera. What the viewers cant see is his face, half masked from the darkness of the abandoned mall, with an easy to read anger in his eyes. 

But like any self-respecting fool, Colby takes a step closer to the drop off with a taunting grin before Elton’s glare finally wins out. 

“Okay, okay,” Colby relents, putting space between himself and the thirty foot free fall. 

His exaggerated retreat nearly gets an eye roll from Elton, but before Colby can catch his expression, Sam tugs on the back of his shirt, pulling his attention away. 

“Stop doing that,” he warns. 

Colby barely holds in a groan. “Not you too. It’s fine,” he promises. 

After six years of knowing someone, you can tell when they’re ready to put up a fight, and Sam’s got that determined face on. “You’re going to get hurt,” he starts. Colby doesn’t let him finish. 

“I’ll be more careful,” he promises emptily, but Sam stands his ground like Colby knew he would. “Seriously, I’m good,” he says again. He’s not willing to stick around for a lecture, so he playfully shoves Sam aside. “Keep up with group, Sam. You’re the one putting us in danger now.” 

They end up getting busted by cops barely an hour later. 

***

It’s not even a week after the abandoned mall video when it happens again. 

Brennen is doing his thing, vlog camera in hand, and Colby’s bored. 

His eyes cant help but wander as Brennen’s voice gets drowned out into background noise. 

The cave they’re exploring has just enough height to climb, with an unforgiving drop at the highest point. 

Colby only tries to get close to the wall of rock leading up to try to see if his hand can fit on the first edge that would help him pull himself higher. When he reaches forward, he doesn’t even expect to be able to grasp the first gap in the rock, but he can. The elation he feels is short lived. 

The next spot that looks easy enough to hold is only feet above his hand. If he jumps, he bets he could reach it. 

“ _Colby?_ ” He doesn’t hear his name called from ground level, he’s too focused on the next ledge close enough for him to reach for. 

The hand closing around his ankle snaps him out of his trance with surprising force. 

“What-” he turns to say, but the the words die in his throat. 

He’s not just feet off the ground anymore. An eight foot drop greets him with force, his eyes bugging with surprise. 

“How’d you get all the way up there?” Brennen asks, his camera hanging uselessly at his side. 

Colby can only find the energy to shrug as he starts making his way down. 

“It just happened,” he admits breathlessly, when his feet finally hit ground. The answer is shockingly honest and it scares him. 

He’s thankful when Brennen just shrugs it off, even after he eyes Colby warily. 

“Okay, dude,” he finally says. And that’s the end of it. 

Until it happens again next week. 

And the week after that. 

…And the week after that. 

***

He thinks it’s maybe a problem, for a while. At least the guys certainly seem to think so. 

But no harm, no foul, is how the phrase goes, isn’t it?

So Colby takes their glares, their warnings, and their general babying in stride. 

The climbing and cliff hanging becomes his thing in some of the vlogs, even though Elton swears he’s going to start editing out anything that so much as hints at Colby being near a drop. 

“I’m not going to keep showcasing your bad habits, or encourage whatever this is,” he says, when Colby asks how cutting him out of the vlogs will teach him anything. 

“Come on bro, he’s just giving you good Clickbait,” Brennen reasons. 

Elton’s eyes flicker between the two of them until they decidedly settle on Brennen. 

“You’re seriously okay with him dangling off shit all the time?” The skepticism in his voice says it all. 

“No,” Brennen starts, hesitantly considering it. The look Colby shoots him makes him quick to change his answer. “Yes, I mean. I’m not his Mom. If the kid’s gonna climb and sit on the edge of dangerous shit then just- I don’t know- at least be close by to catch him if he starts slipping.” 

Elton snorts at the answer, mindlessly turning back to his computer to keep editing, but Colby cant help but think back on his and Brennen’s recent exploring. He noticed Brennen was sticking particularly close to him whenever they got up somewhere high, but he never would’ve guessed why. 

“That’s sweet, bro,” he jokes, when Brennen glances his way. It’s only to hide the way his hands have started nervously sweating. 

He doesn’t think he has a problem, but hearing that one of his closest friends has started adapting and trying to counter act his behavior is somewhat jarring. 

Only seconds later, though, the topic is chased from his mind by their next dumb video idea. 

From there on it’s a dangerous cycle of self reflection. 

Still, that doesn’t stop it - _whatever it really is_ \- from happening. 

It’s only a couple of video ideas later that he finds himself sitting on the edge of a caved-in floor of an abandoned building, his feet swaying carelessly above a ten foot drop to the next level. 

He thinks he should care that the floor’s obviously unsteady, but he doesn't.

From behind him, he can hear the guys getting closer, can even see their flashlights licking the walls in front of him, and he knows they’re going to be mad, but he cant find the mind to care about that either. 

It’s Corey who finds him first. 

“Fuck, dude,” he swears, and Colby can hear his feet stutter to a stop in the rubble behind him, but he doesn’t have the energy to turn around, not ready to face another round of yelling and ragging. 

“What’s wrong?” Sam yells back. 

Colby stops listening. 

There’s a pit in his stomach that feels like it’s swallowing him whole, engulfing his body in a sickening heat that spreads like wildfire through his bones and leaves a chill in its wake. 

He doesn’t hear their voices calling out to him, frantic for him to get away from the ledge. 

He doesn’t hear the stutter in his own heart, either, even as it’s beat echoes painfully in his ears, drowning out sense and reason, because the heat takes over, the darkness closing in, and then he’s falling.

Bliss comes in the form of a breeze, washing over him as he slips through thin air. 

It’s too peaceful to describe. He’s weightless for the first time in months, not a thought in his mind to tarnish his flight. 

The shocking halt he comes to is so opposing he can’t process the feeling, even as he’s pulled up, back over the ledge and laid down, familiar faces hovering over him and shaking him as silent words leave their lips. 

Nothing feels real. 

His heart beat is too fast, his hands shaking as they hold on uselessly to the hands fisted tightly against the front of his sweatshirt. 

Dizzily, he tries to map the people around him while overwhelmed by the press of bodies and the noise they create. 

“What were you thinking?” He finally picks out, from the sea of noise. The question seems to silence the others around them. 

He tires to tell them he doesn’t know, that it just happened so fast, but the words escape him, his mouth moving uselessly as his breath finally comes back to his chest. 

“Sit him up,” someone says, and the figures around him listen wordlessly, their frantic voices settling into silent shock. 

“You’re fucking lucky I caught you.” The words are whispered with such sicken, shaking anger that Colby cant help but look up, his eyes finally focusing on Brennen, who’s crouched at his side, his hands still holding him tight from where he must have caught him. 

“You can let go,” Colby finds himself saying, his own voice scarily steady, but Brennen’s head just shakes, his breathing a panting cadence that makes Colby feel something more than just shock. 

“If I hadn’t caught you- I would’ve killed you myself,” Brennen swears. 

There’s nothing Colby can say. The faces around him- Elton, Corey, Sam, and Brennen- are dangerously pale and wide-eyed, obvious even in the oppressing dark of the building. 

“Are you okay?” Sam asks.

The answer isn’t one he wants to hear, so Colby tries to pull himself together, smiling weakly up at him. In his lap, his hands shake, so he stuffs them away in his hoodie. 

“I’m good,” he lies, and Sam visibly relaxes, relief flooding him. 

Colby doesn’t think he meant to slip, but he’s too scared to look to check and see if the others believed his lie. He gets his answer soon enough. 

“No,” Elton says, “Something’s wrong.” 

In the silence following Elton’s words, Sam’s eyes find his, his look so desperate that Colby wishes he could deny it. 

“I’m okay,” he tries again, because he doesn’t know what else he can say. 

It did happen fast, that’s the truth. But Colby cant place the feeling he felt as his legs dangled freely and his body went weightless, over the edge. 

For weeks he’s been struggling to come to terms with why he craves the hight, the rush, the danger, but he never thought he’d find thrill in the fall. 

Making sense of something like this it hard because it _doesn’t make sense_. When Colby thinks of falling he doesn’t feel elation or a rush, he feels fear. But when he’s there, staring down, everything falls away like he wishes he could. 

Now that he’s felt it- that relief, that give in the seemingly unshakable ground he stands on- he cant help but want that feeling again. 

“Colby, we’re gonna get you home, okay?” Elton’s voice is gentle. 

“I’m fine,” Colby repeats, the lie sounding off even to his own ears. Somewhere deep down he knows that if they find out what he’s thinking they’re never going to let him near an edge again. He’ll never feel that rush, that give, that relief. 

“You’re still shaking, bro. Just let us get you home,” Brennen tries. When he goes to grab Colby’s hand he flinches at the skin on skin contact. 

“You’re freezing,” he says. His eyes look pleading at Corey, then at Elton, as if thinking somehow they’ll give him answers to what he’s supposed to do when his best friend has a brush with death. He doesn’t even try to turn to Sam, who’s eyes are all too knowing now, his expression terribly haunted and shut off. 

Terrifyingly, Colby doesn’t feel guilty, even though he still doesn’t know if he fell on purpose or by accident. It was like that day in the cave with Brennen. His mind just shut off, his body took over, but this time, when he came to, instead of being halfway up a wall, he was halfway down a drop that would certainly hurt him, if not kill him. 

He’s shocked from his thoughts by Elton’s jacket being wrapped around him, his friends still crouched at his sides. 

“Can I stand up?” He finds himself asking. 

“Are you with it now? Not dizzy anymore?” Corey checks each of his eyes as if that alone would give away his physical state. 

“He’s shaking less,” Brennen says. 

Colby can feel his hand rubbing warmth up and down the middle of his back, and he finds himself leaning into the touch, finally letting himself take a full breath. 

“Maybe you should stay sitting for a while longer,” Sam finally speaks. He’s more drawn away from them, standing feet behind Corey now, who hovers by his knees. 

“I want to stand.” Colby can feel the shock leaving him glacially compared to how it came on. 

“Maybe it’ll help warm him up, his skin is like ice.” Elton doesn’t wait for anyone else’s approval, his hands wrapping sturdily around Colby’s arm and waist to get him up with Brennen hurrying to help. 

Sitting upright at first left Colby with a head rush, but that’s nothing compared to this. His vision tunnels from the change, his knees weak and eyes fluttering. 

Things take a while to come back, but he pushes through the haze, his eyes finding Sam’s as he struggles to regain some dignity and his best friend carefully keeps him boxed in against Brennen and Elton’s help. 

“Where’s Corey?” He finds himself asking groggily, nearly slurring as he looks blankly around the rest of the empty room. 

“He went to get the car, remember?” Elton’s cautious tone is starting to grate on Colby’s nerves. He’s never heard the other man be so carefully controlled in his words and actions. 

“Colby do you remember?” Brennen asks again. 

Remember? There’s too much to remember. 

He remembers how he felt, looking down in the darkness. He remembers the feel of the ground falling from under him. He remembers how it somehow felt like going up. He remembers having to lie and knowing that his head’s fucked up. He remembers so much. And it’s still not enough. 

Thinking that shock would leave him so easily was foolish. 

“It’s okay,” Elton says, with that same horrifyingly calm tone. “You’re gonna be alright.” 

Colby’s not so sure.


	2. Chapter 2

Brennen and Sam sit next to him in the car, keeping him pinned between the two of them. They’re both steady walls pressed to his sides, keeping him upright. He’s thankful for their closeness, afraid that without them he wouldn’t be able to find the strength to pull himself together. 

There isn’t anything to say, so Colby keeps his head down, trying his hardest to hold onto any ounce of sanity left in his body. 

“Can you turn the heat up?” Brennen impatiently asks, fiddling with the air vents to point them at Colby. 

“Is he still shivering?” Corey asks, his eyes catching theirs in the rear view mirror.

Brennen doesn’t wait for Colby to answer for himself, just like Corey didn’t address him. 

“I’m right here,” he says blankly, his words hanging like a weight over them. “I’m fine, you guys don’t have to be like this.” 

Elton turns in the passenger seat just to look at him, so he knows it’s serious. “You’re still in shock. We all are, probably. So I’m pulling the adult card here, okay? Just let us get you home and we’ll go from there.” 

He cant argue. He doesn’t even know what he’d say, if he had the energy to. 

“Okay,” he agrees, and it’s enough. 

The ride home somehow feels hours longer than the ride there. He can feel their eyes collectively fall to him every couple of minutes, just glances at a time. It has him on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop like the guys obviously are. 

But Colby’s not going to crack. He’s going to go home, lock his door, go to bed, and when he wakes up he’s going to vow to be normal. 

It’s that easy, he tries to convince himself. 

He wont think about the weightlessness- any of it. 

Except, when they get home, no one leaves his side. 

Corey doesn’t go up to bed, where his girlfriend is waiting for him. Elton doesn’t head down the hall. Sam doesn’t even stop between their doors. Instead, the trio hangs back by the stairway, talking in hushed tones as Colby makes his retreat, being tailed by Brennen. 

In a hundred years he would have never guessed that Brennen would be the problem. He parks himself on the couch in Colby’s room, reaching over to the bed to grab a blanket and pillow without hesitation. 

“What’re you doing?” Colby finds himself asking stupidly, frozen in his own doorway as his friend builds himself a makeshift bed on the couch. 

“You think I’m going home after you pull a stunt like that?” He asks, purposely disinterested as he settles down and pulls the blanket around himself. 

Colby cant help but notice that he’s taken his favorite blanket. 

“Brennen, come on,” he tries, one hand tugging uselessly to get it back. He nearly has it when Sam pushes past him in the doorway, settling at his desk chair and making himself comfortable in a way that’s eerily familiar to how Brennen did. 

“What?” Sam asks, when Colby just stares at him, hoping his glare will make him go back to his own room. 

“You guys can leave now,” he reminds them pointedly. 

Sam just grimaces with a look that tells Colby’s he’s going to hate the next words out of his friend’s mouth. And sure enough, “Elton just went downstairs to change, he said he’s sleeping on your floor.” 

Colby cant help but try to scrub away the annoyance from his face. 

***

When he wakes up, hours later, there’s light snores coming from nearly every corner of his room. 

Somehow Elton won the couch, Brennen ended up in his bed, and Sam pulled his mattress onto the floorspace to share with Corey. 

It’s nearly impossible to make a break for it, but Colby finds a way, used to sneaking in and out of places without being seen. He nearly wakes up Brennen as he crawls over him and shifts the bed, but his friend just turns onto his stomach, burying into the warm blankets Colby left in his wake. 

The hallway and rest of the house is eerily quiet, like even it’s holding its breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Trying not to make much sound, Colby quietly circles the kitchen, wondering if the emptiness he’s feeling is hunger, but one look in the fridge has his stomach twisting. 

Outside, a light blue has started to take over the sky, casting grey along their yard. It’s peaceful, like the eye of a storm, unaware of the chaos happening all around it. 

“Colby?” 

He turns to the voice, surprised when he sees Sam padding barefoot towards him. 

“Just came down to get something to eat,” Colby says, scrambling to lie. 

Sam knowingly eyes the empty countertops before glancing back to him with a smile. “Crazy night, huh?” He mentions it casually, like there’s not three other grown men camped at the foot of Colby’s bed. It’s makes him smile, for real, for the first time since they got home. 

“Crazy night,” he repeats, huffing out a laugh as he shakes his head. They settle on opposite sides of the kitchen island, both comfortable in the barely-there light that’s managing to slip into the kitchen. 

The barrier between them somehow makes everything easier. 

“I didn’t mean to fall,” Colby says with conviction. He’s been thinking about it all night. He knows, if he wanted to fall he would’ve jumped. If he was suicidal, he would’ve jumped. In his short twenty-one years he’s learned one thing; he’s never been one to let fate choose his path for him. 

Sam doesn’t say anything, his mouth thinly pressed together as he waits Colby out. 

“I like being on the edge. I like that feeling.” Each video on their channel is proof enough. “But I didn’t think I’d like falling, too.” 

“Fuck, dude,” Sam breathes out, like the air’s been punched from him. 

Hours ago, Colby stopped feeling guilty, but seeing Sam stressed, running his fingers through his hair as he turns away from him, like he cant even manage to see him so broken, brings back the feeling with full force. 

“I’ll see someone,” Colby offers, just to rid himself of the feeling. 

Sam’s surprise wipes any other emotion from his face. “You should,” he agrees easily. 

“I won’t stop climbing, though.” Colby’s expecting a fight, but Sam just nods, an unhappy smile coming back over his face. 

“I guess we’re bringing Brennen on explore videos for a while then,” he jokes. 

Colby cant help but huff out a laugh, his eyes self-deprecatingly falling to the ground to study the sturdy wood underneath his feet. He’s not looking up when Sam’s forcefully light, calm, and careful tone turns quick and bruising. 

“If he wouldn’t have caught you-” But Sam cuts himself off angrily, glancing at Colby with tears in his eyes. 

“I’m okay,” Colby promises, quick to try to mend the obvious panic Sam is showing. “I’m okay now.” His voice breaks in the air between them, but he means the words enough to want them to be heard. “Sam, I’m okay.” 

The words exchanged make it lighter in the kitchen, in feeling and in daylight. 

Without the shadows it’s somehow easier to lose another barrier. Sam comes around the island, shoving at Colby’s shoulder before he pulls him into a crushing hug. 

“I’ll do whatever it takes, man. Whatever you need to feel better.” Sam pulls away just to really look at Colby. “I love you. I want to help you be okay.” The tears shinning in his eyes finally fall, and Colby’s follow even as he tries to scrub them away. 

“Love you too, man,” he echos. 

There’s nothing more to say, only another day to live through to try to make himself better. He knows this is an uphill battle, that one serious conversation isn’t going to change months of messed up thoughts and actions, but he’s ready for it. He knows he’ll always crave the hight, the danger, and the thrill, but this time he knows what happens after when things go wrong, and it’s enough to remind him that there’s a reason to not give in. 

“I’m gonna be alright” he promises, and this time, he’s sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed the writer :)
> 
> Let me know about any other fics you guys would like to read!


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